Stalin's Russia (Reading History series): 2

by Chris Ward (Author)

• Used

  Illustrated
  1999

  $3.27

  The ebb and flow of debate about Stalin's Russia is brilliantly captured in Chris Ward's account, which not only conceptualises the field in a clear and helpful way, offering a synthesis of the vast secondary literature in the area, but also provides the author's own evaluation of the key issues at stake. The first edition of the book was deservedly popular with readers wanting a succinct introduction to the subject or needing to 'get up to speed' in areas of the subject unfamiliar to them. This edition retains all the virtues of the first but is able to take more account of the new opportunities afforded to historians - both Russian and Western - by the collapse of Communism and the greater availability to researchers of archival sources. This is a valuable revision of a now standard work, acknowledging the various problems and perspectives in interpretation that have emerged since the end of the Soviet Union and including for the first time a chapter on Stalin's foreign policy.

• Used

  Paperback
  1993

  $3.27

  Stalinism is one of the most contentious political issues of the 20th century. Historical enquiry has in part benefited from, in part suffered from this. Controversy has stimulated research into modern Russian history. On the one hand, political passion has all too often determined the interpretative frameworks utilized by historians. Until comparatively recently, for example, the totalitarian model was virtually unchallenged. Many researchers accepted at face value the Stalin regime's claims to monolithic efficiency. Those sympathetic to the Soviet experiment emphasized the supposed unity between the state and the people, those antipathetic to Stalinism pointed to the purges as the logical expression of dictatorship. By focusing on key themes in the history of Stalin's Russia - from the rise of the General Secretary at the end of the 1920s to the world of late Stalinism - this book takes the reader to the centre of the contemporary debate on Russia under Stalin and shows how historical enquiry has been conditioned not only by prevailing ideological fashions but also by the nature and quality of the sources available to researchers. This book is designed to be of interest to students of modern Russian history, Soviet studies or politics.